Science is not fact nor is it based on factual evidence. Science is very simply the act of interpreting an observation of our environment and is limited by the tools we have available for observing. Then scientific fact as a result is only the most supported interpretation of scientific observation, or in other words, the most favored opinion of the things being observed.
Throughout history every scientific observation, no matter how favorable, always has a dissenting opinion from a less favorable group. One thing that is factual about scientific opinions is that they will always be refuted.
Some scientific laws, such as the law of gravity, have stood in place since their discovery, meaning the opposition to such laws is limited, not that it is uncontested. This is because there is an overwhelming agreement of an interpretation.
Darwins evolution theories are being heavily challenged in todays day and age because the tools of observation have advanced significantly since that time. It is only a matter of time before these theories are updated, refuted, scrapped, or a new one will replace it. This is based off another observation called history.
A common argument used to discredit an individual or an opinion is that this group or this person obviously must not understand how xx and xx works. This mentality is based off the assumption that another group has the capability to understand how something works. Unfortunately, no one could say that for just about anything and be correct.
Remember, science is based off observation.
Let’s take the immune system for example. Some people may think vaccines work and refute people who think vaccines don’t work based on the claim that these people don’t understand how the immune system works.
Guess what? Neither side can know how the immune system works.
The method of observation has been used to establish one thing, probability, which gives people the confidence of predictability.
The claim to understand how an immune system works is based on years of testing and observing. By introducing different elements into the immune system and observing how it responds, science can observe such things like “99% of the time you introduce this element, the immune system responds in this way.”
It can provide this type of observation. This observation, or interpretation and opinion, is oftentimes passed on as fact because it cannot be refuted or they have not found a different reaction. This gives people the power of predicability.
The problem is that if I were to ask these people who know how the immune system works what would happen if the immune system was exposed to some foreign substance that currently does not exist on earth or exist or has never been observed, they would not be able to give me an answer.
They would try to identify the substance and then try to classify it to a group of other things it shares similarities with then base the reaction off of how the immune system has reacted to similar substances. This is the probability factor and it’s a complete guess.
What if this foreign substance cannot be classified? Then the answer to how the immune system would react becomes an unknown.
Then how can you say you understand how the immune system works?
The fact is you can’t and once people start to understand that scientific fact is nothing more than a collection of statistically proven responses to different elements and substances it will change your paradigm on science.
Our understanding of the world is limited by observations and our observations are limited by the tools we have available to us. Nothing will ever be fact it will only be a favoring opinion due to these limitations.
At one point and time it was accepted as scientific fact that the earth was flat based on our current tools available to observe the environment. When anyone suggested it was round it was blasphemy and conspiracy. So to observe that it was round people attempted to sail to the earths edge in order to prove this.
A lot of people thought the sun revolved around the Earth. Galileo said no that’s not true. He was jailed and people thought he was mad, low and behold because of an advancement in our scientific observation we determined the the sun did not revolve around the earth.
In 1899 Charles H Duell, the commissioner of the US Patent Office said the following: “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
Do you see the problem?
People get lost in themselves and think the world as they know it today is how it really is without realizing the bigger picture. Think of all the new inventions after 1899: automobiles, airplanes, and computers just to name a few.
Guess Charles was wrong wasn’t he?
But trapped in his peer group and running the patent office he lacked the creativity and ingenuity to think that anything else could exist.
The same thing is happening to scientists in all fields and always will. They really think what they know is a fact rather than what it really is, an observation. Reductionism on steroids, they reduce everything to the smallest element, make an observation, and take those observations forward into more complex elements passing it along as fact.
For all we know our tools may advance and we may realize the earth doesn’t actually evolve around the sun and that the sun revolves around something else or some other major discovery with the sun that no one can even fathom right now.
One thing is certain. We don’t know what we can’t know and we can’t know what we don’t know what to look for. Our observation tools will change and in 100 years many current scientific facts will be changed and in 1000 years you may find that none of them do.
Eventually we’ll observe something we were incapable of observing before, whether it’s because we weren’t open minded or our tools advanced. But we will perpetually advance our observations which will cyclically change scientific fact forever.
Of course, that’s a historical observation and I could be completely full of shit. But probability suggests so. If we use probability in science than we should also apply it to history and realize that everything we think we know is probably wrong.
This would allow us to just be and not put so much energy into our ego and thinking we are more right than others because we are educated in the study of scientific observation.
Realizing that at any point in time the things you take for granted as fact could change in a split second would allow people to focus on things that maybe are more important. After all, it’s scientific fact that one day there won’t be a sunrise anymore. And without the sun how can we possibly survive?
So laugh and live your life to the fullest. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one gets out alive, not even planet Earth.
Darwin Theory of evolution is being challenged? Surely you are referring to objections that are Religious in nature?
No he isn’t, Darwinian theory of evolution (as elegant as it may be) has been and is still scientifically challenged. a challenge needs not necessarily disprove. The theory itself was documented centuries before Darwin, but not to the extent that Darwin studied and presented in his books. So, yes the theory was and is being challenged. such challenges may even improve the theory itself and provide more insight.
Theories do not become by way of just a claim. Theories are subjected to rigorous peer review before making it to the pinnacle of “Theory”. Where is the Peer Review section of this article. Seems like you are dumbing down the whole scientific process.
My reply to your comment is partly in your comment.
A Theory is a theory, not a hard fact. A theory can change and be developed or replaced or eliminated.
Gravity was thought to be caused by masses of bodies pulling one another, the bigger the mass the more gravitational “power”, Einstein changed that. someone will change his theory. it remains a speculation and it still remains that we DO NOT KNOW what gravity really is.
It is humble to realize that what you know isn’t the final fact.
Article is spot on. Objectivity in humans does not exist as humans are emotional beings, using bias, filters, beliefs to shape their world views. Scientific consensus and reducing human and (many other functions) to simplistic universal functions of biology was begun by Rockefeller’s “Biology of Man” initiative. Funding universities and Scientist to evolve a grossly general, collectivist attitude in Science (well documented BTW for those who choose to research). Rockefeller and Carnegie also paid Flexner to create Flexner report which shut down all homeopathic and natural therapies used in Hospitals (competition) to Rockefeller’s newly emerging Allopathic medicine,largly by products of his standard oil fortune, again, well documented. This distortion of Science includes many fields, notably Climate change as well. Few understand the 1900 Robber Barons intervention into Science and Medicine, profoundly reshaping Science forever into a collectivist/consensus and corporate driven profit industry, not at the best interest of the people. He who pays, benefits. The crazy thing, is when you look deeper, the families that consistently funded Universities, Hospitals, Chairs for Science were : Rockefeller’s (Oil) Carnegie (Steel) Harriman (Railroads) Kaiser (Shipyards), etc. People who had nothing whatsoever to do with Science and most specifically Medicine. What did they have in common? All families were known ( and documented) Eugenicists. You decide, after observing the chronic illness and disease of the population, the reduction of birth rates of the developed world with all the “technology” and advancements, are we really better off? Science is exists, but are we truly getting the best Science? Or the Science funded by an Elite ruling class that cares little for us? Science is Neutral, it becomes good (advancements in surgery, antibiotics,technogies, etc) or bad (agent orange, DDT, atomic bomb, biological warfare, etc) depending on application. So, before you go all in on Science, think and observe the world around you. Are people healthy, happy and truly better off? Things that make you go hmmmm…
Thank-you thomasvan,
I have played this idea many times on ‘science’ blogs and all too often the big brains commenting there do not see the essence is the idea.
Often I’ll explain that ‘science’ is not a catalog of absolute facts about what we observe in nature but only a human interpreted approximation of that reality. And that we still have no idea of the scale of unknowns we do not know.
The bottom line is that scientists can not be utterly sure of any absolute truthfulness in their measured attributes of nature. They have the limitations of the human made instruments, and the limitations of both the measurement results and the interpretation of them.
They have on occasion retorted that I am advocating ‘relative truth’, and then move on to chide me about it.
For these self selected ‘scientific’ people this is very sad, as it is not what I was commenting about. They have failed to grasp that part of science’s task is to improve our approximations and expand our understandings of these approximations (e.g. Einstein’s ‘improvement’ on Newton), as well as find new aspects to nature previously hidden from us.
Thank you for this. I was told when I was 13 by my chem teacher that theory is the closest we can ever get to understanding the universe. The first article in google is claiming science is a fact. lol Wikipedia. it’s easy to see that information is controlled and science is rid of.